[quote=sdduuuude][quote=gandalf][quote=sdduuuude]
Why force administrators to meet a certain level of growth ?
…
Nobody is entitled to a 15% return and certainly the taxpayers shouldn’t be making up for the shortfall.[/quote]

Yeah, I actually agree. These are good points, sdude.

The taxpayer is footing the bill, both directly and through stealth inflation.

Compensation / pensions need to be reformed. I just don’t think it’s the root of the problem.

The root of the problem is THE REASON this board exists — bullshit asset bubbles and the aftermath we’re all living through.[/quote]

Not so sure the bubble is even the problem. I mean – it is a problem, but the reason it hurts is because taxpayers are bailing out those who were stung by the bursting bubble, which is kind of the same problem as the pensions.

So, the taxpayers are burdened with bailing out the stupid banks, the stupid homeowners and the entitled public employees.

So, I see the real problem is that the gubmint feels the need to save everyone’s ass using taxpayers money. I would rather divorce the taxpayers from all these bailout efforts so that the decisions made by stupid people affect those stupid people in particular and not taxpayers in general.

Do this and we don’t need to regulate wall street as much because they can suffer from their own mistakes.[/quote]

The “bailouts” wouldn’t be needed if the bubbles were prevented from happening in the first place. The bubbles caused outsized returns on investments during the good years, and actuarial assumptions were made based on those numbers. These artificially inflated (due to the bubbles) return assumptions are responsible for the insufficient contribution rates and too-high benefit levels that have caused the “pension crisis.”

If we had focused on the problems with the Fed and the Wall Street casino, we wouldn’t be having this discussion about the “financial crisis” or the “pension crisis.” Our problems are 100% related to Wall Street and our financial system, in general.